Melvin Frank's painfully amusing The Prisoner of Second Avenue is an oft hilarious but rather dark depiction of mental collapse in a decaying city, featuring a pair of very funny and gently moving comic performances from Jack Lemmon and Anne Bancroft.
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"The story of Mel and Edna (Jack Lemmon and Anne Bancroft), a middle-class, middle-aged, middle-happy couple living in a Manhattan high rise apartment building. Mel loses his job, the apartment is robbed, Edna gets a job, Mel loses his mind, Edna loses her job . . . to say nothing of the more minor tribulations of nosy neighbors, helpful relatives and exact bus fares. The couple suffers indignity after indignity (some self-inflicted) and when they seem on the verge of surrender, they thumb their noses defiantly and dig the trenches for battle." Warner Bros
